Letters eye Heritage Act, turkeys, pre-K, gas tax

The Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act, recently signed by President Barack Obama, adds more protection for significant areas of the majestic and unique mountain-to-plains landscape known as the Rocky Mountain Front.

The act represents a pragmatic and sensible approach to resolving conflicts among many interests competing for use of the Front. With a super-majority of Montanans supporting the act, it is difficult to conceive of any solution which could have achieved greater unity. Collaboration and cooperation are hard work and take many hours of listening to, and understanding, opposing views. There are always fringe elements on both sides who will oppose anything.

Congratulations to Sens. Jon Tester and Steve Daines for setting aside their differences and coming together in support of the Heritage Act. Congratulations, also, to the many Montanans who worked tirelessly for many years to shepherd the act through Congress. The result of their efforts will be remembered and enjoyed by generations to come.

— Norm Newhall,

Great Falls

Inaccurate claim

I was disappointed to see a representative of NorthWestern Energy claim in a Jan. 29 guest editorial that the preferential treatment the company receives under Montana law when a power plant outage occurs is somehow typical of regulated utilities.

It is not. Most other utilities in the region have sharing mechanisms that cause them to be on the hook if a plant goes out of service. Montana Dakota Utilities, the other major electric utility in Montana, must share excess costs in a 90-10 percent split between consumers and the company. Yet that treatment is forbidden under the present law for NorthWestern, which benefits from a 100 percent pass-through mechanism. This is unfair.

Hardly any other business in the United States is so shielded from the risk that a piece of its business equipment fails.

Does a farmer get paid both for repairs to his combine and for the custom-cutters hired to fill in for the harvest and for the loss of grain caused by a delay in harvest?

No.

His insurance might cover some costs, but not all of them. And the same is true of restaurateurs, gas station owners, hoteliers, you name it.

Only NorthWestern, alone even among utilities in Montana, is able to outsource the business risk related to the performance of property it owns to its captive set of consumers. That is wrong, and HB 189 would correct the problem.

— Travis Kavulla, R-Great Falls,

Montana Public Service Commissioner

Beware of turkeys

I see where wildlife officials in Nebraska trapped wild turkeys for release in the Great Falls area. This sounds great.

However, I don’t know if the Great Falls area has pheasants or other birds to hunt, but the wild turkeys eat all the babies of other birds like pheasants, etc.

Broken Bow, Neb., used to have a one-box pheasant hunt, but now has wild turkeys instead of pheasants.